The art of divination not only has a long history, but is also mysterious and strange.
When it cos to divination, if we jump out of the realm of witchcraft and rituals and look at its essence, its really just one person asking questions while another person answers. Its a very simple encyclopedic system, it's just that this encyclopedia can answer almost all questions, and can even tell you the answers to things that haven't happened yet.
I ca into contact with a branch of divination before thats called Qin Dunjia. Its what I want to talk about here.
Qin Dunjia uses a very small but very practical rotating board to find things. You take the board and ditate on what youve lost. Then, you can look at the board and figure out the location, distance, and whether the thing can be recovered or not.
Its impossible to give a full logical analysis of the Qin Dunjia's board with a few words, but I can explain it symbolically. Qin Dunjia's system gives you a feeling that not only one person is answering your question. After you ask the question, where is this thing, a departnt will answer on whether it can be retrieved, another departnt will answer on how far or near it is, and the third departnt will give the location. Then, the answers from all three departnts will be put in a form and sent back to you.
This form is the rotating board, but its encrypted so that ordinary people can't understand it. Just like the 0 and 1 characters in computer coding, it needs to be translated by people skilled in divination. This is probably what Qin Dunjia feels like.
I have tried to find things with Qin Dunjia several tis, and the atmosphere was very delicate each ti. As a matter of fact, there are very few records on the actual effects of this branch of divination, so I dont know whether its real or not. But when things are really missing, we might as well use it so that we don't waste ti worrying like headless flies. It can be said that Qin Dunjia is actually a way to give you an explanation for sothing when you dont have one. Whether its mostly a psychological effect or whether theres really such a system in the world that can answer any questions you might ask, we just dont know.
There are many stories about divination, but what Im going to talk about here is only a short story about finding things with Qin Dunjia. This story warns us not to look for things randomly.
Jin Wantang beca obsessed with Qin Dunjia the year before last. He had devoted his whole life to Taiji (1), which ant that he easily beca addicted to taphysics. He specialized in finding things using the rotating board, so his reputation in the business had also risen in recent years. He was said to be extrely accurate and could find anything that was missing. He enjoyed this kind of hollow fa again and no one had seen him for a whole year. He went everywhere in search of a rich lady willing to hire such a master.
So, when he suddenly ca to my shop to find , I had a bad feeling as soon as I saw his face.
His face didnt look flushed with success, but actually looked gloomy, as if he was worried about sothing.
When I asked him what was wrong, he finished off four or five snacks before saying in an embarrassed tone, "Little Master Three, Im too arrogant and curious. Sothing has finally happened."
I asked him what happened.
"My master told that when using Qin Dunjia to look for sothing, there are three things youre not supposed to look for, he said. You dont look for no-trace corpses, yinshen ghosts, or imasurable calamities."
No-trace corpses referred to missing corpses, such as those who drowned in the Yellow River or those who were dumped in a murder case. It was obvious why you shouldnt look for these things for no reasonit was easy to bring about misfortune.
Yinshen ghosts referred to those who had died. Even if you managed to find them, they were no longer alive and had beco ghosts. They were in the underworld, while those alive were in the living world. These worlds were separated, so it was best not to disturb the ghosts (2).
The most mysterious one in that group was imasurable calamities, because it referred to looking for sothing that was particularly vague in concept. For example, I wanted to find soone who would affect my life in the future.
When you ask Qin Dunjia these vague questions, the answers will usually lead you to finding things that are very strange. Since its connected with nurology, it will change a lot of things and even cause major disasters.
I looked at Jin Wantang and asked him, "What did you find?"
"No, I wasnt looking for these three things, Jin Wantang said. I was looking for sothing not of this world."
There was a special board for finding things that werent available in this world. In fact, it wasnt a particularly terrible thing, it just ant that the search engine was telling you that there werent any results.
"I checked my past life," Jin Wantang said.
I looked up at him as our surroundings seed to quiet down. It was just and him in the room. One was a little creeped out, while the other was a little embarrassed.
If anyone else ca in and said that, I would think it was all nonsense. But Jin Wantang had a certain degree of discretion whenever he did things. Since he ca to talk to about these things, he mustve had so real gains. So, I didn't laugh at him.
"Did you find it?"
"I found sothing amazing." Jin Wantang looked at . "That's why I ca to you for help."
****
TN Notes:
(1) The Absolute or Supre Ultimate, the source of all things according to so interpretations of Chinese mythology. Yin and Yang originate from it. Info here.
(2) Per Tiffany: In Chinese, Yin is often thought of as sothing like darkness/cold, and Yang is sothing that is alive and bright. In Chinese culture, people who passed away are in the underworld, and its best not to bother them.
Reviews
All reviews (0)